A white hat hacker gained control of the official Twitter account for Binance Jersey on Friday, drawing attention to the security issues involved and how easy it would have been to implement a phishing scheme.
Binance Jersey Hack
On Aug. 16, an anonymous Twitter user by the name @LightningNetwo9 was able to hack and gain control of the official account for Binance Jersey. The white hat hacker, who appeared to bear no malicious intent, went on to create a series of posts detailing how easy it would have been to create a “huge phishing scheme.”
While the tweets have since been scrubbed, the original post stated,
“I managed to successfully overtake Binance official domain (binance.je) that I could have easily turned into a huge phishing scheme and scam millions. What I decided is not to do that even tho Im in a huge need of money. I hope that the community will respect it.”
Image from Twitter
The hacker claimed to be a security researcher and even reached out to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao with a link to his personal twitter account–presumably using the high profile hack as a job interview of sorts.
“Im a security researcher. Contact me here @cz_binancetwitter.com/LightningNetwo9”
However, the alleged twitter account of the white hat hacker contains no information, and a sole tweet saying “#binance”. The incident is significant as Binance has claimed a hacker leaking KYC documents earlier this year threatened and harassed it. Where the document come from is unclear, although the exchange claims they don’t match its records.
Crypto Hacks
Binance Jersey represents one of the four independent branches of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which leads the world in terms of trading volume. The exchange also operates accounts in Singapore, Malta and Uganda, with plans to open a US branch in the coming months.
While the hack appears to have resolved in benign fashion, the entire cryptocurrency industry is on high alert after a series of scams. The market for bitcoin and altcoins has been on a downward trend from the constant selling pressure believed to have been imposed by a Chinese ponzi scheme worth billions.
Earlier in the week, it was revealed that criminals involved in the PlusToken scam were unloading their 70,000 BTC in regular batches across exchanges, leading to a price depression for crypto-assets.
In addition, litecoin wallets have come under siege from a large-scale dusting attack that seeks to identify certain users and organizations for phishing schemes.
According to the most anti-money laundering recent report by CypherTrace, crypto scams have already accounted for $4.2 billion in losses through the first half of the 2019.
